


The Bellshire Village Incident

by FrancineFishpaw



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Magic, Curses, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Forced Marriage, Magic, Magic Revealed, Magic-Users, Magical Artifacts, Mind Control, Mystery, Potions, Sick Character, Spells & Enchantments, Strong Female Characters, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6857941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancineFishpaw/pseuds/FrancineFishpaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is wrong in Bellshire village... Hazel is a local historian and, to her friends, known witch. One night she finds out that something is making the village children sick and she sets off to investigate what she thinks may be more than a harmless bout of flu...</p><p>This is a short mystery fiction themed around the worlds of Harry Potter and with a hint of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Please read, comment and enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bellshire Village Incident

It was another bleak day in Bellshire village, the clouds were high and stagnant and they promised neither rain nor sun but remained an unending white glare in the sky. Hazel, a young woman with brown eyes and dark curly hair was currently making her way down a lane towards the only bus stop in the village. She was on her way to work. She waved at a slightly harangued looking woman pottering in her front yard as she passed.  
‘Oh Hazel! I’m glad I caught you,’ Debbie Pendleton shouted, she was Hazel’s closest neighbour.  
‘I won’t be able to make it to book club tonight, Nathan is sick as dog, poor thing and Greg isn’t back from London yet so I have to stay home and look after him’  
‘Oh no, it’s not too serious I hope?’  
Debbie’s features stretched into a look of unease, ‘Oh, he’ll be fine he just needs to rest’  
‘Well, give him my love and we’ll miss you tonight’ she waved goodbye and started back down the lane.

As she rounded a corner she saw that the bus was already waiting for her, she had to run to catch it. She was still breathing heavily when she sat down in her seat and started to work through her mental checklist of what she would have to do that day. Hazel was a historian and she worked in the town museum. Her field was rather specialised however as the objects she studied were exclusively of the magical variety and in addition to being a historian, Hazel was in fact also a witch. You might expect, given that she was a witch, that she would be flying in to work on a broomstick or popping up in a puff of blue smoke in the museum lobby. But Hazel was of a modern persuasion and found that integration into the non-magical population required a disappointing, but necessary, lack of pizzazz. At work she wiled away the hours at a desk peering through a complicated apparatus full of glasses that magnified her eyes to the size of cricket balls examining objects that often had a mind of their own. The other day she had been observing a rather innocuous looking gauntlet that had promptly raised itself onto two fingers and tried to walk off her desk.

That night back in the village Hazel sat in the local pub, The Salty Duck, waiting for her friend Tilda to arrive. Tilda was the other member of the book club. Though book club was a loosely used term in this case as whenever the women got together surprisingly little discussion of the material they had given themselves a month to read went on. At 7.30 Tilda came through the pub door, brushing raindrops from her frizzy hair and raincoat, she bustled over to the table where Hazel sat and gave her friend a warm hug.  
‘It’s miserable out there. How are you?’ Tilda was a school teacher at the local primary and the two had met each other while Hazel had very briefly worked there as a teacher’s aide.  
‘Hi, I’m well, is it pouring outside?’ asked Hazel.  
Tilda rolled her eyes dramatically ‘I tell you what, if this rain keeps up I’m moving to Majorca,’ she laughed, a warm sound that made Hazel smile  
‘honestly six kids are down with the flu alone this week!’

‘Six!’ exclaimed Hazel, ‘that’s nearly the entire class isn’t it?’  
‘I have four students left Hazel, and two of them were looking peaky today in class. It’s a bloody epidemic, speaking of which,’  
Tilda’s eyes suddenly turned shifty, they flitted from side to side as though she were making sure they weren’t being observed  
‘did you bring that thing I asked you about?’ she asked.  
Hazel looked blank for a moment before she realized what Tilda was referring to ‘Ah yes, of course,’ she rifled around in her bulky handbag and produced a small package wrapped in brown paper, the package looked vaguely bottle shaped. Tilda took it from her in a manner that could only be described as clandestine. 

To those who knew Hazel well enough she was a helpful procurer of alternative remedies. Unfortunately, given the secretive status of even common household magic among mainstream communities, her exchanges often took on the aura of illegal drug deals. The bottle she had just passed to her friend was in fact a common headache cure made with myrtle leaves and artichoke stems. The rain outside continued to pour but the fire in the corner of the pub kept them warm as the two women proceeded to spend the next few hours drinking and not talking about the book club book.

The next day was a Saturday and Hazel woke up late, she made herself some tea and toast and stood over her large kitchen bench on which several bunches of herbs were drying. There was a little round-bellied pot on the bench, along with a mortar and pestle and a set of brass scales. Hazel took a bite of her toast and dropped a pinch of something delicate and transparent that looked like insect wings into the pot, then she began to measure out some pin shaped green leaves on the scales…

At eleven am she walked down the lane towards Debbie’s house, she was carrying a little bottle wrapped in brown paper in her hand and a Tupperware container of frozen lasagna under her arm. She knocked on the door and Debbie answered, looking far more frazzled than she had the day before, there were dark circles under her eyes and it looked like she hadn’t slept at all the night before.  
She let Hazel in and set about making some tea, Hazel quickly took over when Debbie tried to pour orange juice over a steaming cup of water.  
‘I’ve brought something for the fever’ said Hazel, producing the bottle she had brought, ‘just a teaspoon with his broth at lunch should bring the fever down.’ ‘Oh Hazel, thank you, I’m so worried, I called Dr Tramway but he’s so run off his feet with all the other children he’s having to visit that he won’t be here until tomorrow,’ Debbie sounded as though she were on the verge of tears so Hazel suggested that she go and have a lie down and that she would watch Nathan while she got some rest. Debbie barely muttered her thanks before she was dragging her feet towards her room, Hazel heard a soft whump as her body hit the mattress like a dead weight.  
Nathan was lying in bed asleep, his face was an unsettling shade of grey and a fine lace of sweat lay across his forehead. Hazel settled in a chair beside his bed with a look of consternation on her face, she rested her hand against the boy’s cheek and he winced in his sleep. Then she did something rather strange, she leaned over so that her mouth was very close to his ear and she muttered some words before blowing softly through her lips. As if in response Nathan’s mouth parted and from it a thin wisp of bluish smoke crawled up into the air. Hazel’s brow furrowed, she reached into her lumpy bag and brought out a book that seemed far too large to have been able to fit into it. Licking her finger she flicked through the pages until she seemed to find what she was looking for, then she began to read.

It was dark outside when Debbie appeared at the door of her son’s room, rubbing her eyes sleepily. Hazel was still reading the heavy tome in her lap while Nathan sat propped up sipping at a bowl of warm broth, he was no longer sweating but his face remained slightly ashen.  
“How long was I out for?” asked Debbie  
“Not long, I had some reading to catch up on anyway. Oh and Greg called earlier to say he’ll be home in a couple of hours”  
Debbie looked physically relieved at this news and turned her attention to her son, fussing over him and straightening his blankets, Hazel said a quick goodbye and quietly excused herself.

The night outside was clear and the air had an edge of chill in it. Hazel made her way back down the lane but instead of turning left towards the road that would take her home she turned right down a smaller path that wound past some houses and towards an overgrown meadow beyond which lay the forest. . She walked until the path was no more than a meandering rut half covered by foot high grass. By the light of the full moon she could just make out the looming shape of a ruin, just two ancient sections of wall and a couple of strewn rocks covered in creeping vines. 

When Nathan had woken in a sweat earlier that evening Hazel had given him some of her own medicine, and when he had stopped sweating they began to talk. She asked him about school and his friends and she asked him where they played after class. He said they played in a castle by the dark wood and that just last week he had been a knight of the table and Timothy had been king, Jenny was the queen of course and Anthony and James both played the dragon. That was before they all got sick, but when he got better he planned to usurp the throne and set himself up as king with Kelly as his queen. 

Now Hazel stood on the fringes of the kingdom staring warily into the tree line. Finally she seemed to reach a decision and she stepped forward. She pulled something long and rod-like from her pocket, it looked like a conductor’s baton, she flicked it and a bluish light came out of the end and by the gentle glow of her wand she paced the ground between the two walls of stone. Suddenly she paused, there was a patch of freshly turned dirt in the middle of the square of the old ruin, she could see children’s footprints impressed in it. She knelt down and dug at the soil with her hands, a pile of dirt began to form beside her and the hole was almost two feet deep when her fingers bumped something hard. She pulled something out, it was an oblong box, a little bigger than a lipstick case, she brushed the dirt from its surface and it gleamed when it caught the moonlight, it went into her pocket. She filled the hole back in and took out her wand again, tapped the earth with it and muttered a long string of words under her breath. A small, almost imperceptible tremor ran out from the centre of the ruin and was still, taking out a drawstring purse from her bag she took some handfuls of dirt and filled it halfway. The wind blew gently through the forest, sending up a soft hiss from the trees, which were dark against the midnight blue sky, the trodden grass in the ruin began to spring back up and a single cricket began to call. But Hazel saw and heard none of this for she had disappeared. 

The next morning the classroom was full again, the children all having recovered miraculously overnight despite the best efforts of one or two children who had craftily tried to cheat the thermometer and swindle one more day off school. They sat busily chatting to one another before the class started, had they gotten onto the topic of dreams they might all have discovered that they had a remarkably similar feverish vision the night before of a woman standing over their bed, pouring sand into their eyes. All except for Carl, who had not been sick and had dreamt instead of giant octopuses with chicken legs that were destroying London.

Hazel was back in her house again and standing in the middle of her lounge room with a familiar look of absorption on her face. She sighed, snapped the little silver box she had retrieved from the earth shut and set it carefully on the mantle over the fireplace. Her empty drawstring purse lay discarded on the couch, next to it was her wand, which she now picked up and set about laying several protection spells around the house. When she had finished she sat down in a high backed armchair directly across from the fireplace and she did not move again for some time.

Darkness began to descend on the house, but she didn’t rouse herself to turn on any lights, she stayed perfectly still so that, unless she moved, it became almost impossible to notice her in the room. At around a quarter to three in the morning there came a sound from the kitchen, a kind of scraping sound that might be a window being opened and a tinkling of crockery like someone bumping a pile of dishes. Hazel remained rooted to the chair and as still as a brick, then she saw it, a dark figure creeping past her as they made their way toward the fireplace. She still didn’t move, she waited until the figure’s back was fully turned to her and then –BANG! There was a flash of red light and a loud popping noise, followed by a noisy crash as as the body of the intruder fell backwards onto a table and smashed a vase that had been sitting on it. Hazel cursed under her breath; that had been her favourite vase. She flicked on the light switch and there on the floor was a man, his face contorted into a look of absolute horror, his entire body rigid and unmoving. Hazel took one look at his face and nodded, she swiped the wand that was wedged into his fist and snatched the box from the mantel before striding out of the house, slamming the front door behind her and leaving the stunned man in pitch blackness on the floor.

Hazel marched down the lane and didn’t stop until she reached the house she was looking for fifteen minutes later, there was a white picket fence surrounding it and flowers growing prettily in their beds. She wrapped on the door, then, realising it was 3.30 am in the morning and that everyone except the screech owls would be asleep in the village, decided to bang a little louder.  
‘What’s going on?’ A woman’s voice sounded from behind the wooden door. ‘Annabel? It’s me Hazel, there’s been a bit of an emergency with your husband’ The door sprang open to reveal a young woman with wavy blonde hair and a delicate pale complexion, this was Annabel Winters.  
‘What’s wrong, where is he? Was there an accident?’ Annabel’s big eyes were wide in fear.  
‘No, no accident, he’s fine but…this may be better explained over some tea or maybe a large brandy, may I come inside?’  
Hazel didn’t wait for a response but moved briskly into the house where she quickly found the whiskey decanter and poured them both a drink. They sat around the kitchen table, Hazel gulped at the small glass she was holding but Annabel only gripped hers and looked worried.  
‘What’s going on?’ she repeated.  
‘Show me your hand’ Hazel demanded suddenly.  
‘What? My hand? Are you all right Hazel? You haven’t been eating the mushrooms you find in the forest again have you?’  
Hazel blew off this comment and repeated firmly ‘I need to see your left hand’  
Annabel, dazed by the early hour and the strange request, complied and put her left hand flat on the table, Hazel peered at it for a moment.  
‘Yes, I see it now,’ when she looked closely at Annabel’s hand there was something quite unusual about it, the fourth finger of her left hand was very slightly see through, as though it were a ghostly apparition, the only solid thing about it was the band of gold that sat at the base. Annabel stared fixedly at her hand as well, anxious to see what Hazel might have suddenly discovered.  
‘How long have you known your husband for Annabel?’ Hazel asked, trying to sound casual  
‘Harold? Oh about, six months I suppose.’ Hazel nodded.  
‘And you got married as soon as you met him?’  
‘Oh no, I didn’t even notice him for the first month or so after I started working at the school, then one day -poof- there he was, where he’d been all along. And it was crazy but it suddenly felt so right and we were married the next day’ she said all this rather breathlessly, with a girlish smile on her lips.  
‘Huh’ was all Hazel said in response.  
‘Where is he Hazel? I woke up and he wasn’t in bed and I got a terrible fright when you knocked’  
Hazel retrieved the silver box from her pocket and opened it underneath the table so that Annabel would not see what was inside, she retrieved something from inside it and snapped the box shut.  
‘Harold lied to you’ she stated. She brought out the box and pushed it across the table toward Annabel, as she did so she put her other hand over the top of Annabel’s left, reuniting her severed ring finger with her body. But Annabel did not seem to notice that her finger was reattached or indeed that it had ever been missing, she was staring curiously into the little box,  
‘There’s nothing in here,’ she said, confused  
‘He lied about you being in love’ Hazel continued, as though Annabel had said nothing at all.  
‘What?’ Annabel let out a tense little laugh, ‘of all the ridiculous- of course we- of course I love-’ but she couldn’t seem to get her words out. They sat there in silence for a long while,  
‘Harold’s gone isn’t he?’ Annabel said eventually, sadness in her voice, Hazel looked at Annabel with pity,  
‘I saw him leave just now,’ she said.  
Annabel reached over to her left hand and took off her wedding ring, she didn’t notice that Hazel was watching her very closely as she did this and that she seemed to exhale a little sigh of relief when the gold band had left her finger. ‘Oddly enough, part of me is relieved. I’m not sure if I ever really loved him you know? It all seems so surreal now…I hardly even knew him’  
Hazel suggested she finish her brandy and get some rest, things would be better in the morning. 

The faintest glimmer of light was just beginning to warm the horizon when Hazel reached her front door. She wanted dearly to lie down and rest but there was one more thing she had to take care of before she did. The man she had immobilised was still lying on the lounge room floor, unmoved. She marched around to face him and with a quick flick of her wand his body suddenly jerked and collapsed out of its awkward stiffness. She flicked it again and the cry that was beginning to come out of Harold Winters’ mouth was stifled.  
‘Shush,’ snapped Hazel, ‘you’re going to listen to me very carefully Harold. Your wife is leaving you, you’ll send the divorce papers in the next two weeks. You have done something very, very bad and what were you thinking cursing the ground where the children played!’ her voice was rising into a passionate rebuke as she continued  
‘you are a ridiculous man Harold Winters and if I see you in this town again or even hear of you being within fifty miles of Annabel or this village I will be taking several of your fingers in return. Nod if you understand me.’ Harold jerked his head up and down, a sheen of sweat had broken out across his brow.  
‘I’m keeping this,’ she said, showing him his wand, ‘you don’t deserve it. And I’ll be informing magical law enforcement of your actions shortly so I suggest you run quickly. Now get out of my site and don’t ever come back here again’ Harold scuttled out of the house and was gone, down the lane and out of sight.

It was dead quiet in the house now except for the birds beginning to trill their morning song. The serenity was broken however by a sudden whump as a large brown owl appeared at the windowsill, stuffing a small field mouse into its mouth. Sighing, Hazel pulled out a quill and ink from a draw and scribbled a brief message, which she rolled up and attached to the owl’s leg, it immediately took flight off into the dawn. She fixed herself a cup of tea, sat down in her armchair and placed the cup on the table in front of her where it proceeded to turn quite cold for she had fallen fast asleep and would not wake again until four in the afternoon.


End file.
